Sunday, July 16, 2017

In
today’s Gospel, we hear the very first prayer St. Peter offers to the Lord
Jesus Christ.

Before
we knew him as St. Peter, the world knew him as Simon. Before we knew him as the leader of the apostles
and the first bishop of Rome, the world knew him as a common fisherman.

And
here, Jesus crosses paths with this Galilean fisherman, borrowing his boat as a
sort of portable podium. It is morning,
and Simon has been fishing all night, but caught nothing. And so he cleaned his nets while the rabbi
preached.

After
the sermon, the preacher Jesus suddenly tells Simon, “‘Put out into the deep
and let down your nets for a catch.’ And
Simon answered, ‘Master, we toiled all night and took nothing. But at your word I will let down the
nets.’” And here is where something extraordinary
and miraculous happened: not just the remarkable haul of fish, but the
revelation of Jesus and the realization of Simon of just who Jesus is. Simon has just learned that this rabbi with
unusual fishing advice is none other than God.

And
so he kneels before God and prays. And
what is this prayer? Is it a praise, a
thanksgiving, a request for healing, or of some wish for a miracle? No, Simon the fisherman’s first prayer is
completely unexpected. He makes his
petition on His knees before Jesus, saying, “Ἔξελθε.” The Latin translation of a form of this word
is seen on the walls of this church. It’s
not a word that the church placed here, but rather the government. You’ll see this word over the doors: “EXIT.”

The
very first prayer uttered by Simon Peter to the Lord Jesus Christ is:
“Exit.” He prays for Jesus to “Go
away.” He is pushing God away from him. That’s his prayer.

Now,
many people do this very thing today: they push God away. Some people reject God because they think
belief in God is unscientific, that science has disproven God’s existence. However, the scientific method involves
hypotheses and proof through observable experimentation. What experiment in a
laboratory disproves God? To assert this
is to miss the entire point about science.
And in fact, modern science was the creation of Christian men.

Other
people push God away based on logic and reason.
Belief in God is not rational, they argue. But it is actually the opposite. For a painting logically requires a painter;
a sculpture logically requires a sculptor; a book logically requires an author,
and creation logically requires a Creator.
This kind of critical thinking and use of reason has been a hallmark of
Christian wisdom and education for centuries.

Others
push God away because they are angry at Him.
Often it involves a prayer that was not answered the way the petitioner
wanted, or a tragic event in life. This
often makes for a curious kind of atheist, not one that simply doesn’t think
there is a God, but who rather refuses to believe in Him because the person is
angry at Him. This not only makes no
sense, but it blames God for the mess that we poor miserable sinners have made
of the world. And as Scripture clearly
teaches, God’s ways are not our ways. We
pray that His will be done, not ours.

And
so we see St. Peter pray for Jesus to leave Him. This is his prayer, which Jesus answers with
a firm “No!”

For
St. Peter’s reason to pray to the Lord to “depart from me,” is not based on a
belief in science or human reason or in a refusal to let God call the shots. It’s actually for a good reason: “Depart from
me,” says Simon Peter, “for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”

Simon
realizes that Jesus is God, and that he, Simon, is sinful. He understands that God is holy, and sinful
men are not. He understands that he is
not worthy to be in the presence of God – like Isaiah, who, when he found
himself before God, protested, “I am a man of unclean lips.” For Simon knew the Ten Commandments, that he
has not kept them. He knew his unworthiness
to look God in the face. He knew that
according to the righteousness of God, he had no right to be in the Lord’s
presence.

So
He asks the Lord to leave.

Jesus
answers his prayer, but not in the way Simon expected. Instead of exiting, the Lord Jesus abides
with him, and declares Simon to be worthy to be in the presence of God. For He tells Simon Peter: “Do not be
afraid.” And he further tells the
fisherman that he will be casting a different kind of net, and will be catching
men instead of fish. Thus Jesus does not
exit, does not depart from Peter, and moreover, Simon “left everything and
followed Him.”

The
Lord Jesus would nickname Simon as “Peter,” which means “Rocky.” For Peter was
to confess Jesus as Lord, and was to become an apostle, one sent to
preach. Jesus says that he was to build
the church upon the rock of Rocky Peter’s confession and apostolic
ministry. This Simon the fisherman was
to become Simon Peter the Apostle, Bishop Peter of Rome, and St. Peter the
martyr.

And
Peter’s life was to be a rocky road. He
was not always the Lord’s rock. For he
would deny Jesus three times as the Lord was led to the cross, only to be
forgiven three times and restored to office after the Lord rose again. And more than thirty years down the road, St.
Peter was to be led and nailed to a cross of his own by the government who
would demand Peter’s exit from life on this side of the grave.

And
though Peter will make that exit, he will rise again, as will we, even as the
Lord Jesus made His own exit at the cross on Good Friday, but entered once more
in the empty tomb on Easter Sunday. Our
Lord Jesus has exited this world at the ascension, but He will come again at
the end of time, even as He continues to come to us in His Word and Sacraments!

And
though we may feel the desire to push Jesus away because of our sin, even
beginning our divine services with the acknowledgment that we too are sinful
men, our Lord Jesus does not depart, does not exit, but rather absolves us,
loves us, and says to us: “Do not be afraid.”
The Lord Jesus abides with us to the very end.

And
Jesus calls all of us to follow Him, each in our own way. Our Blessed Lord has
taken away our sins at the cross, and delivered this forgiveness to us at the
font. And no matter how rocky our own
road, no matter what crosses we must bear, no matter how much our own sins
grieve us, the Lord Jesus abides with us, refuses to depart from a sinner who
confesses, like Peter, that “I am a sinful man, O Lord.” Our Lord answers the
humble sinner’s prayer with these words of comfort: “Do not be afraid.” The Lord Jesus abides. Glory be to Jesus, now and evermore!

Amen.

In the name of the Father
and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

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Why Father Hollywood?

While serving in a previous ministerial call, I had to moonlight at the local Hollywood Video to pay for health insurance for the family. It took one of my coworkers a couple weeks before she stopped addressing me as "Father" and started using my first name.
It was a fun job. My co-workers were the best. I got free rentals too. You can click here to see a picture. Now you know the rest of the story...